Which PowerMac - Big Question ...

[bilbo--baggins]

Good choice

Okey dokey

Finally bit the bullet and did it.

Ordered a 2.3GHz Dual Core PowerMac, 7800 GT video card, stock hard drive (250mb), and an additional 2gig RAM (2.5 gig total).

Bought from a re-seller, who offered to match the price of RAM I found from another third party. Happy with that.

The Dell 24" will be here soon.

Cool.

Rob

Unless you're doing the most complex stuff in Photoshop the 2.3 will give good performance. As for waiting for the Intels - if you were in no hurry and prepared to wait a year or 2 then that would be a good choice. Personally I think an Intel would be good as your NEXT mac, once the transition is complete, all software is made for Intel, and all the initial teething problems are sorted out.

I'm thinking of getting a new Intel laptop, but only because I don't need much software to run on it - if I needed it for Photoshop etc then I would wait. Also I think the new Intel PowerMac's will probably see much smaller performance gains over the current G5's compared to the huge jumps from the Powerbook G4 to the MacBook Pro.

 

[combatcolin]

Okey dokey

Finally bit the bullet and did it.

Ordered a 2.3GHz Dual Core PowerMac, 7800 GT video card, stock hard drive (250mb), and an additional 2gig RAM (2.5 gig total).*

Bought from a re-seller, who offered to match the price of RAM I found from another third party. Happy with that.

The Dell 24" will be here soon.

Cool.

Rob

Have to agree with eXan that the 7800 GT is wasted on Photoshop, however if you ever play any games, (BUY WOW!! ) then you can run then at 1920*1200 60FPS with all the effects on your new Dell 24".

Now that would be stunning indeed!

 

[Blong]

You have made the right choice about buying dualcore 2.3. I only have doubts about the usefulnes of 7800. As I remember you will be doing Photoshop work (2d), so the "latest and greatest" graphics card wont help you AT ALL. You could have invested money wasted on GeForce into getting more RAM. You said that you take 200 RAW photos/day, so 4 GB + RAM is minimum for Photoshop & Aperture, especially if you want to run those at the same time.

But anyway, what is done cannot be undone. Enjoy your PowerMac!

Hmmmm - I understood that Aperture was fairly hungry in terms of video ram, so I gave that a push up. Was I wrong? I will most likely also go for a few games now as well (shhhh - the wife thinks I need the card for photoshop).

Also - doesn't photoshop only "see" 2 gig RAM - OK better for more ram to have other apps running, but why 4 gig?

(Today I only came home with approx 100 shots in the city - just a few "snaps".)

I'm happy - the wife is happy because I'm happy - it's all good in la la land.

Cool.

Rob

 

[Blong]

Have to agree with eXan that the 7800 GT is wasted on Photoshop, however if you ever play any games, (BUY WOW!! ) then you can run then at 1920*1200 60FPS with all the effects on your new Dell 24".

Now that would be stunning indeed!

Mr Combat - sorry just read your post - I mentioned above, isn't Aperture heavy on the video card? I thought the major consensus was that Aperture was no good with stock video card. Anyway - some games will be had - see message above.

Cool.

Rob

 

[combatcolin]

Gaming and photoshop are differnt, but your card will give you a big big boost.

Lots of RAm is always good, and your sorted there.

Don't want to bang on too much about WOW, but it will be amazing on your system!

 

[~Shard~]

im personaly waiting for the new intel powermacs.

You'll have to wait until August at the earliest, hope that's alright. Jobs will be announcing them at WWDC, however whether they will be shipping immediately or a few months afterwards remains to be seen. It depends on the true availability of Conroe.

Hmm, a top-end Woodcrest PowerMac sure would be nice as well to compete with the quad... perhaps Apple will do what they did with the MBP line and not release all the machines in the line at once, waiting for better technology - that could be alright...

 

[asencif]

You'll have to wait until August at the earliest, hope that's alright. Jobs will be announcing them at WWDC, however whether they will be shipping immediately or a few months afterwards remains to be seen. It depends on the true availability of Conroe.

Hmm, a top-end Woodcrest PowerMac sure would be nice as well to compete with the quad... perhaps Apple will do what they did with the MBP line and not release all the machines in the line at once, waiting for better technology - that could be alright...

Seems very possible. The Quad is a very powerful beast that only Woodcrest chips can match or beat. Conroe chips can't do quad processing, so again Intel has tons of chips they rollout before the one that will be common and have a longer life is released. ex. Pentium D, Intel CD...The one's who will have more stay is Merom and Woodcrest, since they are 64-Bit and can do Quad or more.

 

[MIDI_EVIL]

Congratulations on an incredible machine! We use this machine in my University for Video, and it's effing fast!

The graphics card was a good choice, you should always buy the better option if you can afford it and intend to use it at some point.

Photoshop does only see 2 gig, and you'll be fine with 2 gig for a good while. Maybe get a second internal HD to store your photos on, and work from that.

Enjoy your machine! Congratulations.

Rich.

Hmmmm - I understood that Aperture was fairly hungry in terms of video ram, so I gave that a push up. Was I wrong? I will most likely also go for a few games now as well (shhhh - the wife thinks I need the card for photoshop).

Also - doesn't photoshop only "see" 2 gig RAM - OK better for more ram to have other apps running, but why 4 gig?

(Today I only came home with approx 100 shots in the city - just a few "snaps".)

I'm happy - the wife is happy because I'm happy - it's all good in la la land.

Cool.

Rob

 

[~Shard~]

Seems very possible. The Quad is a very powerful beast that only Woodcrest chips can match or beat. Conroe chips can't do quad processing, so again Intel has tons of chips they rollout before the one that will be common and have a longer life is released. ex. Pentium D, Intel CD...The one's who will have more stay is Merom and Woodcrest, since they are 64-Bit and can do Quad or more.

Either that, or throw some sort of dual Conroe in the top end, making it a quad... But yes, Woodcrest would be much better in this situation. The only question is, what is Woodcrest's timeline for release compared to Conroe's, and if PowerMac users are having to wait a while for their Intel PowerMacs as it is, will they be happy about having to wait even longer for the top-end model!

Perhaps Apple will simply release an all-Conroe line of PowerMacs in August, and then come MWSF '07 or shortly thereafter, we'll start seeing Kentsfield PowerMacs, or <gasp> Cloverton!

 

[turtlebud]

Mr Combat - sorry just read your post - I mentioned above, isn't Aperture heavy on the video card? I thought the major consensus was that Aperture was no good with stock video card. Anyway - some games will be had - see message above.

Cool.

Rob

On top of that, isn't it probably true that future applications will likely push more work to the video card and the better your card, the faster the app will run (aperture is one of the first non-gaming applications that do this, but I believe we'll see more in the future). Adding more RAM is easy and since you have 8 slots, you have plenty of room to expand, but it might be a while before you can upgrade the PCI-E graphics card and you'd have to swap out your current card if you did that.

 

[bodeh6]

I think that the graphic card is a great choice. I am sure that you might not notice it now in PhotoShop, but future programs will. Look at iGary, he had to send in his X800 for repairs and went back to the stock ATI 9650 and he saw a huge performance decrease in Apeture. So if you are doing Apeture, then you made the right choice.

 

[asencif]

Either that, or throw some sort of dual Conroe in the top end, making it a quad... But yes, Woodcrest would be much better in this situation. The only question is, what is Woodcrest's timeline for release compared to Conroe's, and if PowerMac users are having to wait a while for their Intel PowerMacs as it is, will they be happy about having to wait even longer for the top-end model!

Perhaps Apple will simply release an all-Conroe line of PowerMacs in August, and then come MWSF '07 or shortly thereafter, we'll start seeing Kentsfield PowerMacs, or <gasp> Cloverton!

The Kensfield is just out of this world, but I don't see that till mid 07, however who knows. All this uncertainty about which chips will be in the Intel PM's makes me want to hold off and just wait till Summer of 07. Wouldn't want to get a Conroe Mac with just 4-5 months of life when Woodcrest or maybe even Kentsfield is placed all across the line in MWSF 07. That's going through too many chips in short period of time which is different then going through different speed. Speed bumps I understand, but not different chips in such a short time. I'll probably end up getting a Quad to tie me over till Fall 07 or even MWSF 08 until the Intel PM line is more settled and just going through speed bumps.

 

[~Shard~]

The Kensfield is just out of this world, but I don't see that till mid 07, however who knows. All this uncertainty about which chips will be in the Intel PM's makes me want to hold off and just wait till Summer of 07. Wouldn't want to get a Conroe Mac with just 4-5 months of life when Woodcrest or maybe even Kentsfield is placed all across the line in MWSF 07. That's going through too many chips in short period of time which is different then going through different speed. Speed bumps I understand, but not different chips in such a short time. I'll probably end up getting a Quad to tie me over till Fall 07 or even MWSF 08 until the Intel PM line is more settled and just going through speed bumps.

I hear what you're saying, but keep in mind that if you play the waiting game, you'll always be waiting. After Conroe and Kentsfield there will be something else, and even if the proc is there that you want, you'll want to wait just a couple more months for some new Blu Ray drive, or 802.11n support, or a new OS, or whatever, so there's always that next thing you could wait for - it's an easy trap to fall into. Sounds like you have a good handle on what you want and when though, which is a good thing.

 

[jhu]

Hello

Newbie to this forum - hope I can get some help with this. I've been agonising for a long time over which PowerMac to buy.

Basically, I do a fair amount of photoshop work (but I am not a pro) - I shoot in RAW and may take 200 shots in a day. Many projects that I work on require in the range of 50 or more layers - my old 1.4GHz PC just doesn't cut it anymore.

Will probably also look at using Aperture.

I'm really looking for longevity and don't want to spend extra $$$ for a new machine to just keep me happy until the Intel PowerMacs come out, photoshop runs natively on Intel and the bugs are sorted out.

My question is whether I should get a 2.0GHz Dual Core and bump up the hard drive to 250MB, add 2GB RAM (not from Apple) and add Geforce 7800 256MB video card ...
.... or go straight to the 2.5 Quad and only bump up the RAM by 1GB and then add a better video card much later (if at all - it will already have the 6600 256MB card) ....
... or go middle ground and go for the 2.3GHz Dual core with a similar setup to the first one.

I have already made the decision that I'll be getting the 24" Dell display.

The price difference between the 2.0 and Quad set up as above (with edu discount) is in the range of AUS$1219.

I hope someone can give me some advice on this.

Rob

if all you're doing is photoshop, why not just get a quad intel/amd machine?

 

[combatcolin]

Mr Combat - sorry just read your post - I mentioned above, isn't Aperture heavy on the video card? I thought the major consensus was that Aperture was no good with stock video card. Anyway - some games will be had - see message above.

Cool.

Rob

Simple way to explain.

Your Graphics card is VERY good at Photoshop.

Your Graphics card is VERY VERY good at gaming.

Now stop reading this and go out and buy WOW.

 

[Blong]

if all you're doing is photoshop, why not just get a quad intel/amd machine?

The simple answer here would be because I want Mac OS.

Cool.

Rob

 

[turtlebud]

Rob, I'm happy to say that I bit the bullet too and ordered my powermac g5. I went a step down from yours and ordered the dual core 2.0 with the 7800GT & bluetooth/wireless upgrades. I just got delivery of the 250gb sata drive that I ordered last week to add to the stock 160gb drive and will order 2gig of RAM at soon.

All in all, the total for the system came out to $1998 + tax. The HD + RAM will add another $260 or so and I'm waiting to see if Apple blows me away with their next revision of their ADC. For the time being, I'll make due with my 19" CRT.

Oh, and I took your advice and started shooting in RAW. For the most part, I didn't need to utilize the RAW file in most of the pictures, but for a few of them that were overexposed or the color was really weird, the RAW file saved me. RAW processing does take quite a bit more processing power though and my trusty 867mhz quicksilver just can't cut it. Started playing around with Aperture in the Apple store as well as Photoshop Elements. May take a look at PSE 4.0 when they have a demo available and will probably play around with Lightroom a bit more. Can't wait to see how all these programs run on the dual core.

 

[Blong]

Rob, I'm happy to say that I bit the bullet too and ordered my powermac g5. I went a step down from yours and ordered the dual core 2.0 with the 7800GT & bluetooth/wireless upgrades. I just got delivery of the 250gb sata drive that I ordered last week to add to the stock 160gb drive and will order 2gig of RAM at soon.

All in all, the total for the system came out to $1998 + tax. The HD + RAM will add another $260 or so and I'm waiting to see if Apple blows me away with their next revision of their ADC. For the time being, I'll make due with my 19" CRT.

Oh, and I took your advice and started shooting in RAW. For the most part, I didn't need to utilize the RAW file in most of the pictures, but for a few of them that were overexposed or the color was really weird, the RAW file saved me. RAW processing does take quite a bit more processing power though and my trusty 867mhz quicksilver just can't cut it. Started playing around with Aperture in the Apple store as well as Photoshop Elements. May take a look at PSE 4.0 when they have a demo available and will probably play around with Lightroom a bit more. Can't wait to see how all these programs run on the dual core.

Cool!

I received my Dell 24" on Monday and plugged it into my iBook. OK, well I'm not utilising the full resolution or wide aspect of the screen, but gee it's nice and BIG.

Didn't order the bluetooth/wireless upgrade - I don't have a need for the bluetooth and the airport extreme card I will buy seperately in the next few days.

Even though it may be a bit of overkill, I virtually shoot in RAW all the time - even for happy snaps. I'm still at that point in my photography where there is a fair amount of luck involved and I never know when I will accidently capture a really good keeper.

Not only is RAW good for fixing white balance and over or under exposed pics, but it allows just a little bit more dynamic range. If you are shooting in RAW and jpeg, compare the two images and you will see a little more detail in the shadows and highlights of the RAW image. Also, you can use it in low light situations by purposely underexposing and then bumping up the exposure in the RAW converter - just like "pushing" with film.

I'm really getting impatient with the delivery of my PowerMac - it's only the fourth working day since I ordered it and they said 5-7 days. Aaaaargh!

Cool.

Rob

 

[milo]

Yeah..that's good advice. Then when your done waiting for Intel, you can wait some more for your software to be ported to Universal binary. Then wait awhile longer while they work the bugs out. Then wait some more because of revision B machines are "just over the horizon." Then wait some more because you read a rumor that dual intel quad core machines are coming out "soon."

Nah, just wait for intel towers.

Or if you're OK with rosetta performance for photoshop, just get a mini duo now to tide you over. Especially since Aperture should be universal any day now.

Infact, one of the music apps I like to use recently announced that the next update for Mac will be Intel only.

Which app?

 

[combatcolin]

Cool!

I received my Dell 24" on Monday and plugged it into my iBook. OK, well I'm not utilising the full resolution or wide aspect of the screen, but gee it's nice and BIG.



Rob

It should work.

A 32MB card should run a 1920*1200 display, just don't overdo the 3d work

 

[Blong]

Getting frustrated (more likely just impatient) ...

While I'm happily using my iBook with my Dell 24" monitor, I'm getting more and more impatient with the delivery time for the PowerMac I ordered.

I ordered it on 24 April (Saturday here in Aust, so I'm not counting that as a day) - so now it's 5 days later and the re-seller who I ordered it from says that Apple hasn't even given it an order number yet (or something like that) which means that it hasn't even been built yet. Aaaaargh!

Then there's still shipping time from Singapore.

I'm trying to be patient, but the thing is that I assume that there is not a huge demand for PowerMacs at the moment, so what's the delay? If I had ordered an MBP, I would expect a longer delay.

 

[turtlebud]

While I'm happily using my iBook with my Dell 24" monitor, I'm getting more and more impatient with the delivery time for the PowerMac I ordered.

I ordered it on 24 April (Saturday here in Aust, so I'm not counting that as a day) - so now it's 5 days later and the re-seller who I ordered it from says that Apple hasn't even given it an order number yet (or something like that) which means that it hasn't even been built yet. Aaaaargh!

Then there's still shipping time from Singapore.

I'm trying to be patient, but the thing is that I assume that there is not a huge demand for PowerMacs at the moment, so what's the delay? If I had ordered an MBP, I would expect a longer delay.

That does seem like a long wait - how long did it would take say on the reseller site? I can understand your feelings - this must be one of the few times that I can't wait to see a $2k charge on my credit card, cause that means the g5 is shipping soon. It's only been 2 days since I ordered, yet I go back every day to see if this shipping status has changed. If it helps, I ordered my CTO powermac from apple on 3/28 and their estimated ship date is 4/3. Hopefully your system will ship soon.

 

[turtlebud]

shipped!

I got notification that my powermac shipped on 4/1 and should arrive on 4/4. I thought it was going to ship from China, but apparently it ships from Fullerton, California. Guess not all the systems are built overseas.

 

[Blong]

I got notification that my powermac shipped on 4/1 and should arrive on 4/4. I thought it was going to ship from China, but apparently it ships from Fullerton, California. Guess not all the systems are built overseas.

Cool! I was just notified today that my machine started shipping on the 31st of March. However my reseller couldn't tell me whether it was going to arrive today or in a few days. It's Tuesday on this side of the world, so I'm happy if it gets here before the end of the week. If not ... hmmmm ... someone may be pushing MBPs in front of other things.

 

[Rodion]

I got notification that my powermac shipped on 4/1 and should arrive on 4/4. I thought it was going to ship from China, but apparently it ships from Fullerton, California. Guess not all the systems are built overseas.

Hi Turtlebud,

I also ordered a Powermac G5 Dual Core 2.0 from Apple on 3/31 and estimated ship date is 4/6. I wish it would ship sooner. Congrats Turtlebud, and Blong on your new powermacs. I wonder if my was going to ship from Fullerton also? It shouldn't take to long from Southern California to Reno, NV.